Himself

by Jess Kidd

  Roll up! Roll up! Did you see bruises the size of saucers on her hips? You didn’t ask in case she told you. In case she said, ‘Ah, now that was where I was held and fucked by a seventeen-stone farmer for the price of a trip to Ennismore to sit in the dark at the pictures and have a good cry, even though the film was a comedy, ho-ho.’

  She never came when he called her. He knew that. He would walk in the forest for long hours with his heart jumping out of him at every sound. He spent long hours sitting in the clearing, panting for her, in the middle of the trees. Sometimes he had the feeling she was watching him, toying with him. He could imagine that, with the mocking little half-smile she threw in his direction, for she never smiled properly at him, not a real smile.

  And then she’d just appear. You’d look around and there she was, leant against a tree with her arms folded. Five foot barefoot, two inches taller in her long-gone daddy’s boots lined with newspaper.

  But there was a man that Orla let find her time and time again. And she came every time he called.

  ‘How did you find me?’ she’d ask.

  ‘I asked my honeybees and they told me.’

  He was a beekeeper, so he should know.

  He told her about the hives, how he could make the bees dull and dopey with smoke so that he could pull out a frame of golden comb. He said that new honey glowed.

  ‘But you are my queen bee,’ he murmured, and he made a low buzz on her neck until she laughed.

  Once Orla said that if she didn’t want him to find her then he wouldn’t.

  He just looked at her and smiled and said he knew the forest better than anyone, better than her even.

  He was the only one ever to have seen Tom Bogey. She had once gone to the camp to see if she could catch a glimpse of Tom. When he found out he had beaten her, calmly, regretfully, and told her to stay clear or the next time he’d kill her.

  He said that his bees were always watching her.

  And she believed him.

  Orla looked up. The man was standing over her wanting her again. She almost felt sorry for him as she held out her hand. He handed her the money that was no longer destined for the neat leather coin purse of the missus, or for the rosy tin box on the top shelf of the dresser, or the bright till behind the cosy bar.

  This was money that wouldn’t be spent on potatoes and butter, flour and salt, tea and boot polish. It wouldn’t be spent on new curtains, or schoolbooks, or a set of pans needed since last Lent. This was money that wouldn’t be saved against Communion dresses and white leather shoes, Christmas bicycles or stair carpet.

  This was the money Orla held fast in her filthy fist as the man took her on the floor of the forest in the thick of the trees. As he lost himself in her the man put one hand on the back of her neck so that she couldn’t look back at him.

  When the man was gone Orla counted the money he gave her and the money she took without his knowing.

  When she had enough she would buy a new coat and go to America.

  Until then she would hide her money in the Blind Room.

  Mammy wouldn’t go in there.

  Mammy wouldn’t cross the threshold for ten thousand bottles.

  In the Blind Room Orla could sleep without dreaming. In the old days Daddy had stacked the peat to waist height there. The air was still haunted by a sweet dark smell. Orla would light the lamp and lie down on the bed. She had made drawers from wooden crates and in them she kept her patent shoes, her good navy dress and her lipstick. She would wear these the day she left. Sometimes she put them on to practise ordering train porters about or waving goodbye from the boat.

  On a nail on the wall was the mirror she had stolen from Mother Doosey. Whenever she looked in it she would laugh in delight at the thought of Mother Doosey trying to comb her bit of hair without it. Then she would become distracted, trying her hair over one shoulder or the other. Breathing kisses on the glass and giving herself come-hithers.

  For often, when the people were at Mass, Orla would slip down into town for a wander. She would climb through hedges and try back doors. She’d check in at the windows then slip inside. The houses were never locked, but if they were she knew the key would be on top of the doorframe.

  The thrill of it! The rooms, waiting on their owners – even the air in these places belonged to someone else. She’d see the signs of recent occupation. The glove dropped under the table in the rush to leave, the cup left unwashed in the sink, the kettle still warm on the hob. The family had been here, only minutes ago, and they would be here again soon. That thought made her grin at her own terrible audacity.

  Mostly she would just walk through their houses, trailing her fingers over mantelpieces and opening drawers, looking at family photographs or the dinner standing ready in the pans.

  If the mood took her she’d help herself to a tin from the larder or a blanket from the press. She took small things mostly: a pearly handled fork or a handkerchief, a postcard or a new tin of tooth powder.

  And she’d leave nothing behind but the faint musky scent of her hair, or a footprint on the clean linoleum, or a sticky kiss on the bathroom mirror.

  Father Jim would go mad, if he knew. Maybe he did know. Maybe some little worm had already whispered in his ear. But she didn’t care. She’d near enough had it with his stories and his charity, with Bridget’s cats and barmy ways, with the cups of tea and the dinners round the table – Will you pass the salt, Bridget? I will, Father.

  She went less and less to her job at Father Jim’s. Sometimes she didn’t turn up for weeks. Then she’d go home to find him sat with Mammy, not minding the smell. The filth. Talking to the old bitch as if she could even answer him.

  When he saw her he’d stand up, his manner uncertain and a little defeated.

  Or she’d see Bridget all over the town. She’d look up and there would be Bridget, smiling mournfully at her, with her eyes watering as if in a fierce wind.

  All in all, she was a shocking disappointment to them.

  In the forest Orla peed on the ground and wiped herself with a handful of moss. ‘I’d pull up my drawers now if I had any,’ she said to the bees. ‘Tell him that, why don’t you? Tell him I’m a queen bee with a cold arse.’

  She pulled on her runaway daddy’s boots and was gone.

  Chapter 8

  April 1976

  The auditions for Mrs Cauley’s annual fundraising production are legendary. On this day villagers and onlookers flock to Mulderrig Village Hall, where animals are sold in the car park and marriages are brokered in the cloakroom, and the parts that haven’t already been filled by Mulderrig’s most reliable performers are ruthlessly fought over.

  This is the time to bring new talent to the fore and if there isn’t a musical number in the play Mrs Cauley will put one there. For many it’s a rite of passage: two choruses of a song from The Mikado on a badly lit stage.

  Mulderrig will applaud them.

  For the town loves those who give it a shot, even if only to fall on their arses. A bad performance will only be half remembered, but a good one can have you riding high all year.

  Mrs Cauley knows how to give the people what they want.

  She’s known it ever since she got off a train at Connolly Station with a suitcase in her hand. She’d looked at the buildings and the clouds and the parks and the people and she’d decided to stay. For the soft Irish skies suited her mood.

  And so there she was, tripping to the Abbey Theatre with her brown curls bobbed under her hat and her little chin tilted up. Full-lipped and clear-eyed. Although her mind had always been old, her gloves and her accent were new. No more than an underfed foreigner with a pretty lisp and a stable of suitors.

  There were so many men!

  Men who gazed at her in the street, in the shops, in the bars, who held doors open for her, held out stoles for her, flagged down cabs for her, waited backstage for her with corsages and jewellery in velvet boxes. Men who sat in the stalls night after night (and sometimes twice on a mati
nee) and sighed as she held the wild dark breathing mass beyond the stage lights in the palm of her little immigrant hand.

  You wouldn’t know it to look at her now: the raddled old rook. But yet, as Mrs Cauley makes her entrance the crowds that gather in the village hall hush and part in reverence. Dressed in a beaded cocktail dress that’s seen better days, with a tatty flapper-cut wig askew on her head, Mrs Cauley crosses the floor with a slow haphazard shuffle. Now and then she stops to return a nod or a smile, now and then she winks up at Mahony to disguise the pain.

  Miss Fidelma Mulhearne (schoolteacher, spinster, deceased) watches closely from the back of the hall. She haunts the rooms she taught in when she wore a twinset and the building was a school. In death, as in life, Miss Mulhearne is a picture of respectable Irish womanhood. Her neat hair is waved and pinned, her low-heeled brogues shine dimly and her skirt hovers demurely above her ankles. She adjusts her spectacles and peers across the hall as Mrs Cauley and the fine-looking fella from Dublin take the stage.

  He glances over at Miss Mulhearne and winks.

  Miss Mulhearne flickers in surprise and flies into the kitchen to hide behind the tea urn with her dead heart beating fast. She wonders if she ought to be outraged as she undoes the top button of her cardigan.

  Leaning heavily on Mahony’s arm Mrs Cauley turns to face her audience.

  The women of the Catholic Housewives Forum have turned out in force (with the exception of Annie Farelly, who has sent her apologies again this year). The quayside, the Post Office and General Store and Kerrigan’s Bar are well represented, as are the outlying farms and houses and the coastguard.

  Mrs Cauley shuffles to the centre of the stage and pauses; Mahony can almost feel her drawing the fibres of herself together. She lifts up her head and her voice comes, rich and rolling, big enough to fill the dusty corners. ‘Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen of Mulderrig, it is a profound pleasure to be amongst you and to see so many familiar faces.’

  Mrs Cauley looks down the slope of her ancient nose. ‘Today I will be auditioning for our twenty-seventh annual fundraising production.’

  There’s a round of applause.

  She smiles. ‘Of course we do not do this for artistic edification alone. Last year’s production raised enough money for Father Quinn to indulge his flock with the purchase of an opulent set of new hymnbooks.’ She takes a step forward with her walking stick and lowers her voice. ‘And do you know, there was even enough money left over for Father Quinn to pay for some much-needed attention to his organ.’

  Someone snickers at the back of the hall.

  Father Quinn attempts a smile.

  ‘As always, there’s an open buffet provided by Kerrigan’s Bar.’ Mrs Cauley sees Mrs Moran pick up her canvas shopper. ‘So you’ll get the run of your teeth if you’re quick enough.’

  She raises her voice. ‘The roles we are casting are up on the board there. Take a copy of the play script from Shauna and be sure to study the marked parts as you wait in line to read for me.’

  Shauna waves from her spot at the front of the hall; she holds up the scripts to show that she has them ready.

  A note of steel slants into Mrs Cauley’s voice. ‘This year we will be performing an interpretation of The Playboy of the Western World.’ Her eyes scour the room for any sign of mutiny but there’s a cheerful outbreak of clapping and a few amiable whistles. Father Quinn is showing more teeth than is reasonable, given the circumstances.

  ‘You need a playboy, do you, Mrs Cauley?’ roars Tadhg. ‘Then I’m your man.’

  Mrs Cauley smiles. ‘I’m delighted to inform you that Mahony here has agreed to grace our stage as our very own Dublin playboy.’ She nudges Mahony in the ribs and he laughs and stands up a little straighter.

  Father Quinn closes his eyes as a peal of wolf whistles sound. Mahony laughs and looks down at his boots. At the buffet table Tadhg shakes his head and wonders what Ireland is coming to when a playboy is shy of soap, scissors and razor and without a decent pair of trousers to his name.

  The young ones flick back their hair and send Mahony smouldering glances. Mahony, not at all daunted by his lack of decent trousers, grins back at them.

  Mrs Cauley bangs her stick on the ground for order. ‘Not only was Synge one of Ireland’s foremost dramatists he was a close personal friend of mine. I’m sure that many of you are familiar with the cultural heritage of this play.’

  Mahony notices a resurgence of interest in the buffet table.

  ‘Is there a bit of romance in this play?’ roars Tadhg.

  Everyone laughs and jeers.

  Tadhg looks around himself in delight. ‘Wha’? I’m only saying.’

  Mrs Cauley rolls her eyes. ‘Today we’ll be casting the lead for the ladies. Our playboy’s love interest: Pegeen Mike.’

  Howls are sent up again, as the women of the village, young and old, bite their lips simultaneously and wonder how they can land the part so as to get their hands on Mahony.

  ‘I also have jobs for those who’d prefer to work behind the scenes,’ says Mrs Cauley with a confused smile, as if this is something she cannot conceive of. ‘I need costume makers, set builders and musicians. Pat, will the band be free?’

  ‘They will of course, Mrs Cauley.’

  ‘Good man yourself.’

  ‘I’ll build the set, Merle,’ says Jack Brophy, standing left of stage as tall and trustworthy as a locked parochial wine press.

  ‘I was hoping you’d say that, Jack.’

  ‘Is it a bar they’re building? Isn’t the play set in a bar?’

  ‘It is, Tadhg.’

  ‘Well then, I’ll furnish it.’

  Clapping and a few more whistles.

  Mrs Cauley holds up her hand. ‘Now, before we begin, I have something very regretful to tell you.’

  The room falls silent.

  ‘This will be my last production.’

  Father Quinn amends his face and attempts to join in with the chorus of disappointment.

  Mrs Cauley smiles sadly. ‘I am of a great age and it’s time for me to dedicate myself to quieter pursuits. So let’s make my last show one to remember.’

  ‘Hear hear,’ calls Tadhg, grabbing hold of a tray of cold tongue as Mrs Moran heads towards the buffet table with her elbows out.

  Shauna has made the room to the back of the village hall as comfortable as she can, dragging in a high-backed chair for Mrs Cauley, who settles into it with the air of a slightly tarnished queen. ‘Shauna, you stand outside the door and send them in one by one.’

  ‘And Mahony?’

  ‘We’re a double act. He’ll sit here beside me.’

  Shauna looks at Mahony and shakes her head. ‘I’ll leave you both to it then.’

  Mrs Cauley turns to Mahony. ‘Isn’t this just the opportunity to begin our investigations?’

  Mahony sits down, laughing. ‘This isn’t an audition at all, is it?’

  ‘No, I’ve already cast the play.’ She ferrets in her opera purse and hands Mahony a list of names. ‘Two lists: on the one side, cast, on the other, suspects.’

  Mahony picks it up. On one side the page is blank. ‘Not many suspects.’

  Mrs Cauley takes back the list and shuts it in her purse. ‘Isn’t that why we need an interrogation? Now, will we start with the eejit-looking ones? They always know who the culprit is. They always know all along, it’s just that no one bothers to ask them.’ She adjusts the feather in her headdress. ‘We should have this sewn up by teatime. The location of the body, the perpetrator, you name it.’

  Mahony laughs. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I’m Miss Marple remember? With balls.’ Mrs Cauley pushes a package of blank cards towards him. ‘Write the name of the witness next to the key facts of the interview. Then we’ll get a sample of their handwriting on the back to compare to your photograph, find out who brought you back. Get them to write that.’

  She hands him a card with the line The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog scrawl
ed on it.

  Mahony takes the cards.

  ‘Bridget Doosey,’ announces Shauna.

  ‘Is Bridget Doosey an eejit-looking one?’

  ‘Not at all, Mahony. Bridget Doosey is the second sharpest old biddy in town. Show her in, Shauna.’

  Bridget Doosey is a small woman with a shrewd look about her. She is wearing a pair of overalls and a fedora. Her one concession to femininity is her handbag, a relic of bygone glamour in tan crocodile with an ornate silver clasp. Like its owner it is full of sandwiches liberated from the buffet table.

  ‘Will you help build the set again this year, Doosey?’

  Bridget shakes her head. ‘I won’t. I’m after the part of leading lady.’ She gives Mahony a comprehensive wink.

  Mrs Cauley hides a smile. ‘Aren’t you a bit long in the tooth for the role of Pegeen Mike?’

  Bridget ignores her and snaps open her handbag. There is a powerful smell of stale cologne and ham. She delicately extracts a pair of glasses and winds them over her ears.

  ‘Have you the book for me to read?’

  ‘I need an actor who can take direction,’ says Mrs Cauley. ‘I haven’t forgotten your improvised rant, Doosey, halfway through act two of The Man Who Came to Dinner.’

  ‘It fitted. It was politically pertinent.’

  ‘It was in my hole. You’re not going off-script again this year with all that communist nonsense. It bored the shite out of my audience; I could see it in their glazed fecking faces. They didn’t pay their good money for that.’

  Bridget narrows her eyes. She has the dishevelled appearance that comes from sharing her bed with cats and eating her meals out of a tin.

  Father Quinn was cursed to inherit her as his housekeeper, as if he wasn’t already significantly burdened. But Bridget came with the parochial house, just as her mother had before her. Bridget is the first to admit that she isn’t a patch on her late mammy in the housekeeping department. Although she can rewire a house, drink Tadhg Kerrigan under the table and castrate a bull calf singlehandedly, none of these are prerequisites for a (successful) priest’s housekeeper. In fact, stringent, swabbing old Mother Doosey would turn in her grave at her daughter’s slatternly ways. Unlike her daughter, Mother Doosey took exemplary care of her priests. It was common knowledge that you could eat a meal from Mother Doosey’s front doorstep without the slightest unease; nowadays Father Quinn rarely finishes his dinner without coughing up a hairball.